Newsletters, eh? Questions...

Done that for years in chiropractic. Stopped doing it about 2 years ago to concentrate on another venture with a new partner (which I now know was a big mistake).

About 6-7 months ago, after seperating from said partner, I decided to go back to DRM because it's "what I know" and restarted the Chiropractic newsletter, as well as 2 others.

On the very basic level of service, we offer a "PLR" newsletter to clients that they can then print themselves and distribute to their past and present patients. This newsletter arrives via email, once monthly.

No more than one practitioner in the SAME local area may join. That way we have no "over laps" and the service stays clean.

The cost for this is $37.00 a month and it's almost "to easy" to fill the service.

We're thinking of raising the fee to $47.00 a month but the jury is still out on that.

Prety easy to run. I've hired a medical journalist and then insert those articles into a professional Word template (I have custom made) and email it out to all members once a month.

4 articles per issue, each month.

THEY print and distribute.

I have an OTO where WE handle everything.

In this scenerio, the members upload their list into their account and WE handle everything above, as well as print/mail.

The price point on this lever varies depending on volume... though i don't heavily promote this OTO because I have no desire to be in the "printing" business.

If you want to see the service, please go to my BLOG at benpedersen dot com, and click on "Newsletters".

XponentSYS,

Thank you for such a great summary. Do you find that most business owners know how to add their logo or company name and customize the newsletters? Do they physically mail them or do some of them use e-mail delivery? Also, how far do you define the same area- do you use a certain number of miles?

I actually have a stress reduction booklet that I sold to some massage therapists and schools but haven't reached out to chiropractors outside-the-box.net .

Debbie

XponentSYS,

Wow! Thank you so much for such a detailed explanation. Actually, $37/mo for four articles is right around where I was with $20/mo for two articles. The thing is $37 sounds like a serious price, whereas $20 just sounds silly.

I love the idea for continued promotion when your spots are filled, too.

Luvfoxy,

I was thinking about something similar, but with ebooks/reports to use as list opt-in incentives. I've noticed a lot of businesses have some kind of mailing list opt-in form, but few offer their visitors any incentive to hand over their email address. (I'm one to talk. My site's opt-in incentive is still in draft form on my hard drive.) So you could offer your tips books in both ebook format and as or ready-to-print text. Just a thought.

Ben (XponentSYS) is the real deal. He needs to make a WSO out of this.

I have a quick question. Since your newsletter is meant for the member to print out. Do you make your template in color or do you just use black ink?

Before I ask my question, I just want to say I only do online work, but this sounds like too good of an opportunity to pass up with some of my SEO clients. I haven't done offline work since I was a teenager (pre-Internet), so I'm not sure where to go with this.

When you're making out the newsletters, do you use stories from say, the AP, Google News, Yahoo News, etc? or do you custom write your own articles? Are there certain themes that you've found that work best? I'm doing up something right now in MS-Publisher, but I'm not sure what to do for the content...

-- j

Okay everyone, here's some asnwers to questions posted here...

Hi Debbie,

1. Surprisingly (at least in my market) newsletter custimization doesn't generate that mane support queries. I'd venture to guess that 99 percent of my market knows how to edit their newsletters.

To that end, this is why I insisted on creating them with MS Word and anyone else who runs with this should also use word... the reason being that it's "mainstream" and most know how to use it. Also, in the small business world, 99 percent of people have it.

Sure, i personally HATE Word and would much perfer creating a newsletter with Adobe Suite, or at the very least, MS publisher. But the fact is, even though the newsletters can't be as "sexy" when made with MS Word, the market has it and knows how to use it.

2. As far as what members do with their newsletters, we advise them to MAIL (snail mail) the newsletters to their past and present patients. We also advise them to start an email list and send the newsletters out as an Ezine.

Our members are furnished with a "print" version, as well as an "email" version.

3. Client Area Exclusivity - this is important and is done "case-by-case". My policy is one doctor per town - that's it. The exceptions are extremely large cities like Chicago or New York, in which case, we go by ZIP.


Well, thanks. Means alot coming from a fellow Warrior of your stature.


We offer 2 versions - BW and color. The member can chose.



I hired a freelancer to create the templates we now use. I haven't much experience with the themes that exist in MS Office online, though I do know they exist.

As for articles, I hired a writer from this forum to write them exclusively. It's important to note that PLR won't fly with this method.

As for you using MS Publisher goes, I revommend MS word instead. See my answer to Debbie's question above as to why.

I would think that if the PLR is sufficiently rewritten that it should work just fine...I wouldn't want to just use the PLR as is.

Patrick, yea, it's a quality issue, for the most part. If you're getting highly specialized quality PLR then that's a bit different... but in general PLR wouldn't fly for this if you wanted to do it the "right way" and the profit margin you have if you sell all of your slots should be sufficient to hire an expert writer, AND pay him/her well

What format do you send the "email version" in?

@ XponentSYS,

Thanks.

I was just saying this the other day on a thread, that I know someone who has a similar business model, have considered it myself...it should be easier than ever now with auto response programs that dont require optins, you can just ask people if they want to be on your list, without requiring them to do anything on their own.

She goes to trade sites , where thousands of bulk buyers gather from all over the world, and collect emails of people who submit buyer requests... So now she has an email list with a few thousand home decor buyers on it that she has gathered over time...

Every week she cold calls different home decor manufacturers, looking for inventories of distressed merchandise offering to broker it off...and then she emails her list, saying "I have a load of this or that available"... imagine sending an offer like that out to 1,000 known bulk buyers every week. She makes a full time living at it, and even sold me a few loads for my friends retail store, so I KNOW people buy.

Im going to read more on your blog when I get a chance, this is a great business model.

EDIT:

Here is an example of an email I received from her (funny that she says "guys and gals" like I do, that may be where I got it from...lol):

Guys and Gals,

Have a couple of loads of overstock merchandise from Home Decorators Collection. This merchandise is coming from Monticello, AR 71655. The manifest is attached.

I'm selling this load at 10% of retail - heck of a deal for merchandise that was not damaged nor customer returns. The load amounts to two full loads - 24 pallets each load. It can be split into two separate loads if need be. However, they need this merchandise moved very quickly.

Payment is due prior to shipping. If you need quotes on shipping costs, I can provide that for you as well or you can provide/arrange for your own shipping.

If you are interested, please contact me as soon as possible. Would like to see these loads moved before the end of the week.

Thanks so much,

Becky

She sends out emails like this every week, or at least whenever she finds a new stocklot to broker off... Alot of them come from the same place ("Home Decorators Collection" is a brand), so I guess they do it frequently and she has some kind of deal with them.

Notice how she says "They" need to move the loads quickly, as opposed to "I". She is a broker.

-John

I run a newsletter, but don't charge much for it. I break even, but outsource the content which I publish first on my consumer-oriented blog.

I could certainly do better, but for now the free content basically makes the blog autopilot. I pay good money for the content so it's worth publishing.

I'm in a not very lucrative market, hence the low cost each month. I haven't sold many subscriptions either ... but it's entirely on autopilot so I don't mind.